Pablo De Noches
by Giveres
Summary: What would you do if you found a baby hiding in a toilet tank at work? This is Pablo's story. Written in second person. T for slight mention of sexual topic, nothing explicit


You push the mop around the floor half-heartedly, already wishing your shift would end. First day on the job and hoping to be sacked. How fantastic your life is. Of course, the pounding headache isn't helping anything. Stupid hangover. Stupid new office with sawdust all over the floor. Stupid stupid stupid.

Okay, main room is done, or as done as it's going to get. You push open the door to the bathroom and pause, uttering a low curse. Water, everywhere! And you thought the main room was bad… You vaguely remember the office manager saying something about a toilet not working, now that you think about it. Not that you were paying much attention to her quickly-muttered instructions, the pounding in your head having been of more import at the time. Now you wish you had paid more attention. How long had this toilet been like this? Just moved in, and already managed to screw up the toilet?

Nothing to do for it but to open the tank and see. Not that you'll be able to fix anything, you're a janitor, not a plumber. But if you don't fix it, there'll be complaints tomorrow, no doubt about it. Okay, here goes. You pull open the lid, some small corner of your mind noticing how lightweight it is. Then you see what is inside the tank and step backwards in shock.

A baby! What on earth is a baby doing inside a toilet tank? And what a small baby it is, looks to be no more than a few months old. How long has it been in here? Is it dead? You step closer and gingerly fish the baby out, wincing at the sound of its wails. There go your doubts; this kid is definitely alive. And definitely male too, you notice, since the diaper that had been covering him up had fallen off when you lifted him.

"What are you doing here?" you wonder aloud, talking to yourself as is your habit when you are confused.

"C…cold," the child replies in a small voice, causing you to jump. A kid this tiny, talking? How on earth?

Well, first things first, warm the poor kid up. He's shivering and his lips are blue. You grab a stack of paper towels off the rack (fancy new office too cheap to invest in real towels…) and dry off the kid as best as you can. You don't have any clothes to put him in, obviously, so after some contemplation you remove your shirt and swaddle him in it. The kid looks much better now, he's barely shivering anymore.

"Dunno what else to do for you now, but I still gotta finish up here. Can you sit here quietly while I work?" you ask, feeling foolish talking to a baby so small. But then again, you reflect, he managed to tell you that he was cold before. The kid doesn't answer in words, just stares at you and nods silently.

You pick up your mop again and start swishing it over the floor. Think they'll notice that you mopped the bathroom floor with the water that had leaked out of the toilet instead of clean water? Nah, no one ever notices these things. You hurry through the rest of the bathroom, the kid—and your hangover—silently urging you to finish up already.

Okay, done. Now what? Your instinct is to go find a bar, get raging drunk to forget about your hangover, find a woman somewhere who wasn't too expensive. That's all that money was for, anyway. Alcohol, women, maybe some food, and if there was any left after those three, rent. But now you have this baby to think of. What are you supposed to do with it? Some heretofore unknown paternal instinct has flared up inside you, and you realize with dismay that you cannot bear the thought of leaving the child to join the teaming masses of homeless children on the street or giving him up to an orphanage somewhere. Most orphanages around here are fronts for organ farms, anyway. You wonder idly if the kid has escaped from such a place. Or if leaving him in a toilet tank was some unknown person's attempt at murder. Whatever. No way of knowing. Your headache prevents you from being too curious, anyway.

Well, nothing for it but to take him home with you, then. You shrug on your coat and awkwardly bundle the kid inside with you, sheltering him from the rain as best as you can as you hurry through the streets. When you arrive home, you pause. Where are you going to keep a baby? You don't have a… a crib, or bassinet, or carriage, or whatever it is that babies need. Kid'll have to make do with a mattress on the floor, then. You don't want to put him on the bed with you for fear that he'll fall off. Or that you'll get drunk one night and roll on top of him. Either way would have the same outcome.

You pull an extra mattress onto the floor (you had always cursed your landlady for using your closet as her storage space and keeping her junk there, but now you are grateful) and turn to the kid who was sitting on the floor, watching you.

"Um… you wanna go to sleep, kid?" you ask, unsure of what to do now.

The kid looks at you hopefully. "Food?" he asks. You inwardly curse your stupidity. Of course he'd want to eat before going to sleep, he'd been stuck in a toilet tank without food for who-knows-how-long. You make your way to the kitchen, wondering what babies are supposed to eat, exactly. You look through your cabinets for some ideas. Beer? No. Peanuts? Probably not, he might choke. Raw macaroni? Well, not so good raw, but if you cooked it then maybe… but your stove was disconnected two days ago, you recall muzzily, something about not paying your gas bill on time. No macaroni, then. Onto the fridge. Hm… Week-old Chinese takeaway? Nope, it's starting to smell off. You furrow your brow. What on earth can you give the kid? For that matter, what on earth can you eat yourself? It's been a while since you ate at home, preferring bars and bar food. You then notice a half-loaf of bread sitting on the counter. Better than nothing.

"Here, kid," you call, walking back to the bedroom. The kid, you notice, has crawled onto his mattress and pulled a blanket on top of him. You frown. Is he still cold? Your apartment isn't so warm, but the kid is dry and clothed now, that should be helping him somewhat.

The kid pops his head out from under the blankets, staring at the bread. You offer him a slice, wondering if you'll have to feed it to him. But no, he bites into it hungrily, and finishes it within minutes. When he finishes it, he stares at you. His stares are starting to get disconcerting.  
>"Look, kid," you snap. "If you want something, ask for it, don't just stare at me like a freak and expect me to read your mind. Got it?"<p>

The kid nods and then opens his mouth hesitantly. "More?"

You hand him another slice and hope he won't eat too much more. If the kid keeps going, you won't have any bread left to eat. Oh, well, there's always beer and peanuts, a meal you've eaten many times before. But your worries were baseless. After finishing his second slice, the kid promptly rolls over and falls asleep. You go to sleep soon after, once you finish your meager supper of bread, beer, and peanuts.

You wake up a few hours later to find that, once again, the kid is staring at you. "What?" you mumble sleepily.

The child picks at your shirt that has come unwrapped from him while he slept. "Clothings?" he asks. You sigh. Where are you supposed to get baby clothes from? Well, never mind, you have some old shirts that you were planning on throwing out one of these days. You can cut some of those down and tie them at his waist with a belt. Thinking of his waist brings something else to mind.

"Oh, no, kid. Did you crap your bed last night?" The kid looks down, ashamed. Your first instinct is to slap him, but you consciously restrain yourself. Not his fault that you were too dumb to remember to put a diaper on him, is it? Course, you can say that it's not your fault either, that by that point you were so tired and your head was pounding so much that you didn't think of it, and you never take care of babies so how were you supposed to remember something like a diaper?  
>You push yourself out of bed and look down at the kid's mattress. You groan. "Nora's gonna kill me," you mutter, imagining your uptight landlady's reaction to finding kid-crap on her mattress. Well, nothing to do about it now. You do need to get some diapers, and quickly, though.<p>

"Okay, kid, here's the deal. I'm gonna walk down the block to a neighbor with kids and see if I can score a few diapers. You stay here and try not to crap on anything else, got it?" You feel kinda stupid giving instructions to a tiny baby, but he nods in understanding.

You leave after hastily getting dressed, and come back a few minutes later. The Diegos were suspicious—what would a layabout like Pablo De Noches need with diapers, anyway?—but they gave you a few, and that's all that matters. You attempt to put one on the kid, eventually giving up on getting it even, but an uneven diaper has to be better than nothing, right? After diapering him, you pull out one of your old shirts and hack at it with a scissors for a few minutes. The kid looks on warily.

"Here, kid, some new 'clothings' for you," you say, and the kid comes close and lets you put the ripped-up shirt on him.

You and the kid eat more bread for breakfast. Well, most people would call it lunch, but it's breakfast for you, that's what happens when you work nights, your schedule gets messed up. After breakfast you are at a loss. Are you supposed to entertain the kid or what? You have some vague, half-remembered notion in your mind of taking babies out for walk.

"Hey kid, wanna go for a walk?" you ask. The kid looks at you silently, then nods. You pick him up—little thing is so light, how old is he?—and leave your apartment. You don't even bother to lock it behind you. What do you have that could be stolen, anyway? You go down one flight of steps, two, three, till you get to the street. You look around. You're outside, now what? The kid is staring at everything, swiveling his head back and forth like an owl. He starts squirming out of your hands, so you let him down, onto the rickety plastic chair someone left on the sidewalk.

The kid perches himself precariously on the chair, leaning forward so far you are sure the chair will tip. But no, miracle of miracles, the chair stays upright. Well, mostly upright. It is listing drunkenly against a tree, and the kid has one hand propped against the tree for balance. How can a kid so tiny realize that he needs to support himself or he'll fall? You shrug. Guess he must be brilliant. Maybe he'll grow up and go to that fancy Battle School that everyone's talking about. Maybe he'll defeat those Buggers-Formics-whatever you're supposed to call them nowadays.

The kid is staring at the tree, tracing his hand over and over something. You bend down to see what he's looking at. P 3 DVM, carved into the wood like a banner. You remember when you carved that. You were drunk as a sailor and convinced that the whore you were with was the love of your life. You're surprised that you managed to carve the letters evenly.

"Pablo De Noches!" You start mightily, nearly knocking over the chair. What is your landlady doing here? You paid the money-grubber something recently, didn't you? You aren't quite certain, but you must have, you usually remember to pay sometime around the middle of the month and the month is nearly ending. So what is Nora doing here now?

"Pablo De Noches!" She screams again.

"Whadaya want, woman?" You answer.

"What is this I hear from Veronica Diego about a baby? Where would someone like you have a baby? Who did you steal it from?" She gets out in a rush.

So goody miss Veronica Diego saw fit to tattle on you to your landlady. Well, better than the police, but still not good. Out of the corner of your eye you notice the kid scramble off the chair and toddle to the stairwell. Good instincts, that one has. Must be what propelled him to hide in a toilet tank to start with.  
>"Well? Answer me, Pablo! Do you think I'm standing here screaming in the street for fun?"<p>

"It's none of your business, Nora. Go away," you say rudely, hoping that she'll actually listen.

"None of my business? None of my business?" She shrieks, nearly busting your eardrum. "Of course it's my business if you kidnapped some poor baby and are hiding him in my apartment!"

"I didn't kidnap him," you interject.

"Oh? Just found him lying around somewhere, did you?" she retorts.

"Yes," you mutter.

"Oh really? Fat chance of that. But even so, I won't have it. You'll get rid of him, you hear?"

"Get rid of him? Get rid of him, like he's a piece of trash? What does that mean? Where should a little, defenseless toddler go, anyway?" you respond.

"Hmph. That's no business of mine. Let the little ragamuffin join the rest of those good-for-nothing, criminal kids who wander the streets. You hear? He's none of your business, so put him back where you found him and be done with it!"

"No," you answer curtly, and turn to go back into your apartment. Nora is spluttering in indignation that you cut her off, but you don't care. You check briefly under the steps, where you had seen the kid go hide before, but the little crawl space is empty. Huh. He musta made his way back upstairs on his own. Brilliant little guy, that one.

You trudge up the stairs, thinking about what your life will be like with a baby in it. No more alcohol, no more whores in the house, that's for sure. Maybe you could leave the kid home sometimes while you went out and had a good time? That's an idea. Or maybe you could find somewhere else for him to live. Not abandon him to the streets, like that witch Nora wanted, but maybe find a family that would be willing to take in a defenseless child? You mull these thoughts over as you push the door open and walk inside.

"Hey, kid? Kid? Where are you?" you call out. No answer. That's odd, maybe he's sleeping? You walk over to his soiled mattress-you still need to figure out what to do with that-but it is empty. Huh. Where could he be? You pause as a thought hits you. The kid is advanced for his size, that's for sure, but he's still tiny. No way he could push open your reinforced-steel door (Nora is paranoid, she'd kill you if she found out you don't even lock it) on his own. That means the kid isn't in here. But he wasn't waiting under the steps, or anywhere else that you saw. But where was he? Maybe he slipped away when you were arguing with Nora because he thought you'd put him back in the toilet, as she had suggested at one point? Best go find him quick, before he gets into trouble. Kid that small, trouble won't take long to find him.

You spend the rest of your afternoon scouring the neighborhood, but can't find the kid anywhere. You spend so long searching you arrive late for your night shift at the office and are promptly fired. That's just what you wanted yesterday, isn't it? But today, your "freedom" somehow isn't worth so much...


End file.
